"Victory for the right to privacy": LGBT+ association welcomes the announced removal of data relating to same-sex relationships for blood donations

The LGBT+ association TOUS.TES welcomes the removal announced by the French Blood Establishment (EFS) of data mentioning homosexual relationships, long a contraindication for blood donation, which it had retained despite a condemnation by the European Court of Justice.

Having launched a petition in July calling for this data destruction, which gathered some 16,000 signatures, TOUS.TES said it was "happy with this victory for the right to privacy and dignity of thousands of homosexual and bisexual men," in a press release on Sunday.

"Without a legal basis to justify the retention of this data, including telephone number and postal address, the EFS has been in a situation of "manifest illegality for several years," she continues, because the "discriminatory measure" in force since 1983 had been "lifted in 2016 with very restrictive criteria," before "all criteria linked to sexual orientation in 2022" was abolished.

In 2016, the law allowed homosexuals to donate blood - something they had been prohibited from doing since 1983 due to the risk of transmitting AIDS - provided they had been abstinent for a year.

This deadline was reduced to four months in 2019, before this condition was lifted in March 2022 , with all reference to sexual orientation disappearing from pre-donation questionnaires.

But in September 2022, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) condemned France for violating the right to privacy, the EFS having retained data on a Frenchman presumed to be homosexual - because he did not want to indicate his sexual orientation - whose blood donation had been refused on several occasions.

"Sensitive", data relating to blood donor candidates must be "accurate, up-to-date, adequate, relevant and not excessive in relation to the purposes pursued", and must not be kept longer than "necessary", the Court had then affirmed.

On Friday, EFS Deputy Director General Sara-Lou Gerber stated that the establishment will delete "by mid- to late-September, the bulk of the data" known as RSH (for "sexual relations with men") from its archives and the rest by the end of 2025, confirming information from Libération.

In 2022, the EFS - which did not specify the number of files concerned - preferred "not to immediately delete" this data, having "questions about what should be done with it", it specified.

TOUS.TES says it remains "vigilant," as the EFS has "not responded" to its "request for details on the data collection period used to carry out this deletion" and has not communicated on the future of "data on lesbian women registered before 2002."

It is demanding an official communication from the EFS on this data destruction and an "audit of its compliance with GDPR regulations," declared Romain François, its president.